Moon

October's Hunter's Moon reached peak illumination early Monday, lighting skies worldwide

October's full moon, known as the Hunter's Moon, reached peak illumination at 12:12 a.m. EDT on Monday, October 26, and photographers from San Francisco to Istanbul to Baghdad captured it glowing over skylines and landmarks, the BBC reports.

The moon appeared nearly full on both Sunday and Monday nights, and skies stayed clear for viewing over the Baltimore area Monday night, with temperatures dropping through the 50s, according to WBAL News Radio meteorologist Alena Lee.

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Saturn appeared near the moon before it peaked#

Skywatchers who looked up on Sunday night could also spot Saturn, appearing gold and positioned a few degrees south of the moon, according to SSBCrack. The planet was visible to the upper right of the moon from the Baltimore area Monday night as well, per WBAL meteorologist Alena Lee.

Low on the horizon, the moon took on a more pronounced orange hue, an effect SSBCrack attributes to moonlight passing through a denser layer of atmosphere that filters out shorter blue and violet wavelengths. The BBC similarly explained that when the moon rose behind the Basilica of the Madonna dei Martiri in Molfetta, Italy, blue light with shorter wavelengths was dispersed away from the observer's line of sight.

The name traces back to the harvest season#

The Hunter's Moon follows September's Harvest Moon and gets its name from the seasonal shift from harvest to winter preparation, when cleared fields made animals easier to spot and deer had built up fat reserves, the Old Farmer's Almanac told Yahoo Tech.

Noah Petro, chief of NASA's Planetary Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Lab at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said seasonal moon names carry meaning and encouraged viewers to reflect on the time of year, telling SSBCrack, "While they're looking at the moon, I'd encourage folks to ask, 'What does this time of year mean to me?'"

The moon is also known by other names including the Drying Rice Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Freezing Moon, Ice Moon and Migrating Moon, and some cultures call it the Blood Moon for its orange-red color, according to Yahoo Tech and SSBCrack.

Observers can still trace craters despite the glare#

At full phase the sun appears directly overhead from the near side, flattening shadows and making the surface look less three-dimensional, Astronomy Magazine notes. Even so, the rays of ejecta around craters including Tycho, Copernicus, Proclus, Aristarchus, Stevinus and Byrgius remain visible, with some of Tycho's rays stretching hundreds of miles.

The next full moons will be supermoons, the Beaver Moon in November 2026 and the Cold Moon in December 2026, according to Yahoo Tech.

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